This invention relates generally to improvements in solar ovens, and more particularly to an improved insulating food heating chamber. In the past, the heating chamber walls, which support the heat conductive metal collector plate and the transparent plates above the collector plate, were made of plastic insulating materials. However, when the solar oven was in operation, the high temperature of the collector plate was conducted through the supporting portion of the heating chamber, thereby creating undesirable effects on the insulating materials such as the release of obnoxious odors as well as volatile substances which condensed on and stained the surfaces of the transparent plates located in front of the collector plate.
Furthermore, insulation materials used in prior solar ovens have not been efficient enough to enable heating chamber temperatures to reach cooking temperatures when the sun was partially obscured and the incident solar energy was reduced to less than that which is normally received on a clear, bright day.